The
food bank’s fastest growing program, Food for Thought™,
provides severely at-risk children with a backpack filled with
nutritious child-friendly foods for them to take home on the weekends,
when they might otherwise go hungry.
The program is designed to allow students to get the assistance
without drawing any attention to themselves by using backpacks,
which look like any other student’s backpack.
During the 2006-2007 school year, nearly 7,800 backpacks were
filled. Twenty-five schools now benefit from this innovative,
life-saving program!
Thanks
to your support and partnerships with Female Leaders in Philanthropy,
a United Way women’s initiative, and the Community Foundation
of the Ozarks, we have expanded the Food for Thought program into
a total of 25 elementary schools this year. Thanks to these two
organizations, schools located within Springfield benefit from
the Food for Thought program.


Note:
Ozarks Food Harvest prefers monetary donations for the Food for
Thought™ backpack program because The Food Bank can purchase
the specific items at a bulk, discounted rate. In the past, OFH
asked for easy-open, single serving items, but now purchases those
items and requests for donations of toothbrushes and small
toothpastes.